A storage system is a processing system adapted to store and retrieve data on behalf of one or more client processing systems (“clients”) in response to external input/output (I/O) requests received from clients. A storage system can provide clients with file-level access to data stored in a set of mass storage devices, such as magnetic or optical storage disks or tapes. Alternatively, a storage system can provide clients with block-level access to stored data, rather than file-level access, or with both file-level access and block-level access.
Data storage space can be organized into one or more storage “volumes” comprising physical storage disks (or other storage devices), defining an overall logical arrangement of storage space. The disks within a volume/file system are typically organized as one or more groups of Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks (RAID).
Typically, provisioning is performed by storage administrators for large-scale storage systems allocating multiple file systems or Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) from the same storage system. However, thin provisioning occurs when more storage is allocated than is actually present on the storage system. The allocated storage in thin provisioning situations may be vulnerable to running out of space on the underlying storage system.
Some visualization tools may be available to assist an administrator in monitoring and visualizing available storage space on the storage system. One conventional visualization tool allows the administrator to view a graphical chart displaying total space usage over time. However, such conventional visualization tool requires the administrator to configure storage settings by entering the numerical amount of storage space settings in another input window different from the graphical chart. The administrator would then have to reload the graphical chart to visualize the update. The visualization tool may also be able to calculate storage space that could be reclaimed by deleting snapshots (a read-only copy of the data set frozen at a point in time). However, common visualization tools cannot display a graphical visualization of the storage space that could be reclaimed until the selected files for deletion are actually deleted.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method to assist a storage administrator to immediately visualize the potential effects on the storage space breakdown of deleting one or several files of the storage system without actually deleting the files.